After visiting the Tres Cruces dam in Tanza, I dropped by General Trias to see my Lola. Our lone surviving grandparent on both sides. The last time I saw her was some two years ago. Because I go out of the country regularly, these trips are becoming few and far between. I have great memories […]
Category: Cavite
Spurred by historian Pio Andrade Jr. during our recent meeting (last year, November), I went to Tanza earlier to look for the Tres Cruces dam. “Go see it, it’s still there… look at how they built that dam…it’s quite advance for its time” he said. I asked Andrade to visit the irrigation projects that the Friars established in Cavite with me a few […]
What’s with Taal that draws travelers like a moth to a flame? Well, there’s only a handful of towns like it left. Along with Carcar and Vigan, these townships are the citadels of Filipino heritage conservation. It is not only the number of Antillean houses that had been gratifyingly safeguarded but the attitude of the locals towards their […]
There’s hardly anything left of the old Spanish era San Francisco de Malabon. Even the old name was lost. The province dropped its hispanized name in the early 1900’s to honor its greatest son, Mariano Trías, the vice president of the de facto government created in the Tejeros convention. A province mate, Congressman Emilio Virata, himself a historian and […]
Last year when I visited my last surviving lola we spoke a lot about her memories growing up. She’s the youngest of more than a dozen siblings. I was reminded of her and our conversation when a few weeks ago, an Australian man I’m training with told me about his experience and facsination with “arnis”. […]
Sometimes delays can be good. It gives you more time. I don’t know if the flight was instructed to circle around to land on the opposite runway. Because it appeared that the plane was about to approach the runway that passes through the Taguig area but at the last minute the plane suddenly shifted path […]
When I wrote an article about the Chavacano situation in Cavite City last year – I was also thinking about Ternate. I’ve always been interested in our creole language. Is it experiencing alarming decline like what Cavite City is experiencing? When I visited Municipalidad de Ternate my questions were answered. I was relieved that Chavacano […]
I came across this blog and was quickly reminded how fast everything seems to be going these days. The blog is about the vanishing Caviteño Chavacano, the Spanish-based creole language that was widely spoken in Cavite City but has long been neglected. Kudos to the author for putting up a site that would be a […]
Maragandón is a place that evokes a painful past. Here, the cracks in the Filipino revolution started to open. A swift trial followed by a murky death sentence was carried out by a military trial for the Bonifacio brothers, Andrés and Procopio. It would have been easier to accept, especially for those who admire Bonifacio, […]
One of the attractions of the Aguinaldo shrine is the first President’s elegant personal car during his years as Presidente of Los Veteranos dela Revolucion de Filipinas. A Packard limousine (1924), whose maker was the indisputable leader in the field of luxury automobiles at the time. The great depression of the 1930’s impaired Packard’s business […]
More than twenty years ago, back when public transportation going to Cavite were not as extensively established, you have to ride these colorful mini buses somewhere in Coastal, near Baclaran, going to the old towns of Cavite. They made an impression on me, (well, I was an impressionable kid) because these buses were pieces of […]
Today is Aguinaldo day. Holiday in the whole Cavite province, normal day to us outside Cavite. This tells you where Aguinaldo is in the pantheon of Filipino heroes. — A blogger once asked why we don’t have an Aguinaldo day. We do have but its seem to be celebrated exclusively by his beloved Cavitenos. For […]